[nagdu] navigating without your cane

Sat Oct 8 21:06:25 UTC 2011

sherri, I'm glad GDB has gone to encouraging and requesting that students 
use the cane.

I use my cane and heel Arrow sometimes and I do this for patterning if I 
can't explain what I want him to do otherwise and I also give him times off 
and he is with me in harness because he's in public but I use my cane.

Margo and Arrow
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sherry Gomes" <sherriola at gmail.com>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane

> The first few times I went to GDB, the students were told to put away 
> their
> canes, but it isn't like that anymore.  Students are encouraged to use 
> their
> canes around the building before they get their dogs, and then when they
> move around the building without their dogs.  They are also encouraged to
> continue to use them, and to use a cane and heel their dogs after they get
> home, in situations where they might want to use clicker to teach their 
> dogs
> to find something or as in the case of needing to find a specific driveway
> or door or something.  I admit, before I started having in home training, 
> I
> would fold up my cane when I arrived at GDB and there it stayed in a 
> drawer
> till I packed up to go home.  I know the dorm as well as I know my own
> apartment.  For now, anyway.  I'm left handed and literally can barely 
> hold
> my cane in my right hand, let alone wield it safely that way, so I never 
> use
> it when working my dog.  But I know many many GDB grads who do.  I think
> most of the schools have come a long way in that regard.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Margo and Arrow
> Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 2:33 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane
>
> Jenine, I can't speak to prior to 1981 but in 1981 we had to use canes. 
> If
> you didn't have a dog in hand, it was requested in our class anyway to go
> get the cane and use it.
>
> seeing Eye emphasizes the keeping up of cane skills even after you get 
> your
> dog.
>
> I personally think that using the cane at a school if you aren't working
> with your dog is a good thing because it emphasizes using the cane as 
> well.
>
> I have used my cane all four times I've been at the eye if I didn't have a
> dog.  I did not find switching from cane to dog that difficult.  Yes, my
> instructor did mention some things I was doing that were carryovers from
> cane usage and that they weren't necessary with a dog.
>
> Margo and Arrow
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jenine Stanley" <jeninems at wowway.com>
> To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'"
> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 3:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane
>
>
>> Cindy and other TSE grads,
>>
>>
>> Has TSE always had that policy of allowing you to use your cane prior to
>> receiving the dog? Just curious as I'd thought they used to force people
>> to
>> put away their canes and learn the building sans cane before getting a
>> dog.
>>
>> I don't think there's a right or wrong to either way of doing things,
>> allowing or not allowing canes. It's not so much breaking an emotional
>> attachment as breaking a kinesthetic one, muscle memory and all that. For
>> me
>> with my very first dog, the switch from leading or getting input from the
>> right side of my body, my cane hand, arm and shoulder, to the left side, 
>> a
>> very hard pulling dog, was tough. The time without a cane to equalize 
>> that
>> input did help some.
>>
>> Jenine Stanley
>> jeninems at wowway.com
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
>> Behalf
>> Of Cindy Ray
>> Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2011 2:58 PM
>> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
>> Subject: Re: [nagdu] navigating without your cane
>>
>> Well, TSE has you use the cane to help you orient yourself to the 
>> building
>> for the time until you receive the dog. Then until the dog is in harness,
>> you heel the dog throughout the building. I think this is a good thing
>> because you have come to feel fairly confident about the building by the
>> time you get your dog and you can truly heel it rather than inadvertently
>> reverting to having it lead you where it thinks you want to go even if it
>> is
>> on leash. The first dog I got there was just from Saturday afternoon 
>> until
>> Sunday afternoon when the dogs were issued. This  would not have hampered
>> or
>> improved my transition to the dog one way or the other. Now I've been
>> there
>> enough that I would be confident either way, and once I did a Juno walk
>> right before a meal so had to return without the cane. It wasn't a
>> problem.
>> No cane after we got the dogs though.
>> Cindy
>>
>>
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